Resizing ntfs partition

[Lars Rasmussen]

On 2/26/07, Kelly Terry <ksterry at mstarmetro.net> wrote:
> > > Just curious, how does "no important data to back up - just the
> > > windows install with drivers and very little software." consume
> > > nearly 55GB ?
> >
> > Okay, so you did say he's only using about 5GB (my reading
> > incomprehension there), but it still makes me wonder why after the
> > defrag you don't see a full 70GB hunk of space at the end...
> >
>
> The defrag left a portion of the disk used somewhere in the middle.  I
> don't know why it left that data unmoved but I at least have 20 gig at
> the end.  Thanks for the link.  I just d'loaded gparted and will give
> it a try.

I'm likely too late to respond... hope everything went well.

5GB is a small amount to copy to an external USB drive, unless the
laptop does not have USB 2.0.  If lacking USB 2.0 I'd put the drive in
a desktop via an IDE connector or in another laptop with/USB 2.0 and
then boot 'knoppix 2' using partimage to copy the ntfs partition.

Don't forget to copy the MBR off the previous system as well -
although that's pretty easy to fix if you do forget, should things go
awry.

It's worth noting that while 5GB is not a lot of data it can take an
extraordinary amount of your time to rebuild a system if it gets
screwed up.  I've had good & bad experiences with gparted.  Backup the
data first & save yourself some potential pain.  160GB external USB
2.0 drives(the small 2.5" ones) are $130 at Costco.

Re: the unmovable files, one large one is likely the paging file.  Use
the following to defrag upon reboot so it's not open for exclusive
access:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/PageDefrag.mspx

If your buddy ever wants to sell his laptop or revert to a point in
time before you put Linux on it, it might be nice to have a backup of
it with original(or close to original) software/drivers.
--
Lars